Particle therapy is an established method for treating tissue, in particular tumor diseases. However, irradiation methods as used in particle therapy are also used in non-therapeutic application areas. These include, for example, research activities in the particle therapy field that are carried out on non-living phantoms or bodies, irradiation of materials, etc. Typically, in such applications, charged particles are accelerated to high energies, formed into a particle beam and guided by way of a high-energy beam transport system to one or more irradiation rooms. In one of said irradiation rooms the object that is to be irradiated is exposed to the particle beam. In this case it is essential to the success of an exposure to radiation that the object that is to be irradiated is positioned as accurately as possible relative to the particle beam.
Devices are known in which the positioning of, for example, a patient is accomplished with the aid of a robot-based positioning device. For example, a patient treatment couch can be flexibly positioned relative to a particle beam by means of a multi-axis robot arm.